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If you want to treat patients with new interventions for cancer Management then you Need to be a physcian, with speciality in Oncology (probably a cancer sub-type) and working in an academic Center of Research excellence with strong industry collaborations. You would probably Need to be on an academic path within the clincial Setting with activities of Patient Management linked to Research with a Goal of Publishing and getting crediblity - you would Need a clinical Mentor.

Remember alot of Research especially at the clinical Level and new drugs or new interventions are usually in collaboration with industry. Although not to demish the importance in the field of useing currently available therapies that work in some cancers and trying them in other cancers in the Goal of achieving a benefical Response.

The lab Researcher would distant to the Patient, working in a laboratory Setting using pre-clincial/technical appoachers to say identify a new target molecule or compound for possible disease Treatment. So early in drug development, You're not working with patients as you would in clinical stage drug development, but you're helping develop a new drug from a pre-clinical perspective, here a PhD in Oncology will be what you looking to pursue. You're in a lab, not a clinical Setting, you're not seeing patients.

So it depends on what you want - and the Setting you want to be in. Both can bring meaningful findings to the field.

If you can narrow down more your interest then taht would help you - I propose you identify if you want to work in a lab (with cells/animals) or with patients. Not to say you can Bridge to lab work as a physician you can but the clinical/medical education path is the first path to take.